When I was in Korea, while serving in the US Army, I was part of a unit returning from a field exercise. We were in a big 'duece and a half", with two in the cab, and six of us sitting in the back, on top of all our gear. The road we were on was elevated about four or five about the surrounding fields. The truck got too close to the edge of the road,and the edge crumbled. The truck tipped over on it’s side, down onto the field. We were all tossed around with our gear, and I couldn’t get out until stuff got pulled off of me. My head was between two tent poles, like a nut in a nutcracker. I could have been “cracked”
Oddly enough nobody was actually seriously injured, but I was scared. Next morning most of us went to medical call, because that was when we started feeling the pain from being stretched and wrenched like taffy in a pull.
I was hit and nearly run over by a car when I was six years old in about 1993. I was walking and the car turned, lucky for me it was going awfully slow and the driver upon realizing I was hit, stopped the vehicle. My knees were badly bloody.
Just a week after I was born I developed this disease(don’t know the term, stenosis something), where my stomach closed up and as a result everything I ate and drank would come back up due to blockage. I was a vomiting infant and became dehydrated. I underwent surgery, and my parentsister were told that there was a chance I would not make it.
The bullet bounce-back that whizzed past my ear. (The time one split and the bounce back peppered my arm and leg doesn’t count; they were only splinters.)
Any one of almost two dozen 18 wheeler trucks that has tried to change lanes into where I was driving.
The time the car I was in burst into flames.
The time I slipped on some ice and fell off of a train trestle.
The times people have pulled knives, golf clubs, bats, and/or guns on me (that’s close to two dozen by now).
The time that car T-boned my parents car when I was a kid in the back seat.
The time I was T-boned on my bike by a car passing a stopped bus.
The time when I was a kid when I walked through the woods & walked up to an active outdoor firing range from the target side.
The time we checked out of a hotel and people started dropping dead of Legionnaires Disease there the very next day.
The time the rocks from the edge of a cliff broke off as I stepped away from them.
The time I had a double blow-out on a highway and ended up stalled in the fast lane at the bottom of a hill facing the wrong way in the rain.
The time I ended up on the wrong side of a cement divider on a highway with a bus coming at me head-on.
The time a fence shredded my leg & I had to crawl home to get help.
The time I fell free-hand rock climbing.
The other time I fell off of a cliff, breaking both arms (I drove home after).
The time a muffler pipe failure nearly asphyxiated three other people and myself in the car I was driving.
The time a gas can caught on fire but didn’t explode.
The time and M80 in a bottle exploded in a wood pile next to me.
The time I fell 15 feet onto some soft cinder blocks.
The time I was knocked out in a street brawl.
The time I passed out in a closed room from some spilled chlorine.
The time the receptionist on my floor opened an envelope and white powder fell out (I’m not sure if that counts).
…and the sad part is, I know that there have been a Lot more than that. I remember at First Confession, as a kid, that I was the only one in the class who actually made the priest laugh…
“Sure, I’m ugly as sin, poor, and have no real status. But if you stick with me and move when I move, girl, you probably won’t die. You’ll probably never be bored either…”
I’ve had two brushes with death that I’d consider somewhat equally close:
Firstly, the time I was admitted to hospital in stage 3 hypovolemic shock. If the internal bleeding that had me vomiting blood hadn’t stopped of its own accord when it did, there’s a good chance my mother would have found me dead rather than unconscious on the bathroom floor when she did.
Secondly, a high-speed collision on the motorway right outside of Vienna. My survival was literally a matter of degrees; a young couple had been disoriented by the (at the time) notoriously incomprehensible signage and had chosen to literally stop their car on the middle of the motorway. We were going at least 120 km/h and did not see the stopped car until the car immediately in front of us pulled out of their way, which meant that my mother who was driving at the time had roughly 50 meters to avoid them. The fact that she managed to pull the car slightly out of the way rather than colliding with them head-on was very likely the difference between the few cuts and bruises I did sustain and sustaining life-threatening injuries.
Ten years ago, I was sucking on a hard round piece of candy, as I answered the doorbell of my apartment to let the plumber in. As I pressed the buzzer, I choked on the candy. It plugged my windpipe almost completely. Only with the most strenuous effort, I could produce a slight wheezing rasping sound. By the time the plumber had walked up to my third floor, I had nearly passed out and could only point at my throat, my eyes bulging. The plumber dropped his bag, grabbed me and performed the Heimlich maneuver on me. Just like in the movies, the damned piece of candy flew out of my mouth. If the plumber had gone back to his van for something instead of walking straight up, I would be dead.
Sunday morning walking down the sidewalk. About to step into the crosswalk when I hear car brakes screeching, a sound that make me immediately stop dead. A car going about 60 miles an hour has turned into the street I’m about to cross, without turning signal or slowing down.
I look at the car whose brakes screeched. It is up on the sidewalk. We both look at each other, totally scared out of our wits.
If that car hadn’t been there to brake, I would have been hit and probably killed.
Mine is also a tire blowing out while driving. I was on the inside lane of a 3 lane freeway in southeast Houston around noon. I was going about 70 mph, and so was all the other traffic, which was heavy. The rear left tire blew out and I lost control of the car. I did not respond in the proper textbook manner, although if I had I might have very well died. I ended up slamming on the brake as hard as I could. This caused the car to swerve rapidly to the right across both of the other lanes of traffic. Luckily I was in a spot where there was a large strip of grass between the freeway and the access road, where traffic was going about 50 mph. I stopped about 1 foot from jumping the curb onto the access road. I somehow managed to avoid hitting anyone else and anything before I came to a full stop.
I didn’t look at the old threads so I may have told this one there. I know I’ve told it in license plates threads.
Probably as close as I’ve come to death (aka, not very close) – I was about to cross the street in Times Square when a luxury car zoomed around the corner in front of me. It kept going and the license plate was RIP GDG.
Last one to leave a party on an Indian reserve in Northern Ontario early in the morning and walking to a road to hitchhike a ride from other employees of construction crews developing a local mine.
A couple of hundred yards from the door a pack of 20 to 30 dogs descended upon me with evil intent. Drunk and freaked out, I sobered up quick enough and before the reached me I ran at them. They all tried to run around me to get at my heals. Having run 3 steps at them I turned and ran 4 steps back at them. This happened numerous times until I eventually got back to the door I had left and safety.
A month or so into 7th grade, I dropped a pop fly ball in a gym class softball game, which caused us to lose the game. The team captain said, “I’m going to get all my friends together after school and we’re going to beat you up” and I thought she was kidding.
She wasn’t.
She had people stationed at every exit of the school, and when I finally found one that wasn’t blockaded, I started running, and did so for probably an hour until I wore THEM out. The next day, and for some days afterwards, there were kids, most of whom I didn’t know, who followed me around the school and cackled every time they saw me. She spent the next 3 years regularly threatening my life, all because I dropped a fly ball in a gym class softball game. :mad:
What did the teachers and my parents say about it? “You shouldn’t have dropped that ball.”
:smack:
I believe to this day that had I tried to fight, she would have killed me, and gotten away with it.
I used to ride a crotch rocket 650 CC sport bike when I was young and more foolish. It was so blazingly fast at acceleration that I got into the bad habit of quickly looking behind me then changing lanes and accelerating super fast even if a car or truck was coming up in the next lane. Misjudged the speed one time I did this and hear a huge horn and a bump behind me. Turn around the theres a massive fuck off semi trailer literally touching the luggage rack on the back of my bike. This was going over the Gladesville bridge in Sydney so pretty high up, if the truck has been going slightly faster most likely I would gone over the railing head first, or at the very least ended up a smear on the tarmac.
Another time on a different motorbike (Sukzuki VX 700) I was driving Sydney-Brisbane, 12 hour tip in a single day. Accelerated to overtake a big rig on a single lane road and briefly touch 180 km an hour while passing him, got back into my lane and hit a massive pothole. The handle bars ended up facing all the way to the left as far as they can go with my bike still going straight ahead at about 120 km per hour. This is called “tank slap” and when it happens the handle bars end up oscillating very violently back and forth for about 5 secs until calming down. Luckily I managed to hold onto them and recovered from it.
I still love motorbikes especially v-twins, but I’m a lot more cautious in my riding now.
Here’s a video of what tank slap looks like, note this guy is an idiot and gets it from doing a wheelie on a public road. Don’t do that.
Trying to take a short cut on at 16,000 foot peak in Tibet by myself. Ended up on a cliff face where the rocks kept falling off as I grabbed them. Finally managed to get up and over, and bawled like a baby for a long time. No one within a day’s hike to hear.
Some stupid shit like riding a motorcycle drunk in Taiwan in the 1980s.
